np: XY OU Suspect Testing Round 6 - Wrecking Ball [Read Post 423 for Posting etiquette]

[Karxrida]

It seems to me that while MMaw is certainly very,very strong, the problem lies in the Physical aspect of the metagame.


There is a strong lack of special attack counters/checks in almost every scenario listed. This can probably be attributed to stealth rock presence (fire types like volcarana, charizard) and a deficit of special-based ground attacks in general (I think only earth power?).

Has anyone done calculations involving SpaNido taking hits or dishing them out?

252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Play Rough vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Nidoking: 171-202 (56.4 - 66.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Iron Head vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Nidoking: 306-360 (100.9 - 118.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Nidoking: 204-240 (67.3 - 79.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Focus Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Nidoking: 190-224 (62.7 - 73.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Nidoking: 407-479 (134.3 - 158%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Earth Power OHKOs but it can't switch in and flat out loses to SD or a SubPunch set with Iron Head.

 

[mastermind15]

Personally, I oppose the ban for three main reasons.
1. Although she hits super hard, MegaMawile is one of the slower mons in the tier, meaning it is very easy to hit it hard first, scare it out and possibly stat boost, or inflict it with status. WoW, for example, is extremely popular in OU and is very threatening and fairly easy to hit MegaMaw with, considering how slow the poke is. Once Maw is impaired with this condition, it becomes essentially cannon fodder.

2. MegaMaw may run a lot of different hard-hitting sets, but that should not be used as a reason to ban it saying that it is too hard to check or that it creates 50/50 situations. There are many other mons in the meta that also create 50/50 situations and if you guess wrong you can lose a possible key member to the team. Take, for example, Kyurem-B. While the poke doesn't have quite the same brute power as MegaMaw, it still hits super hard in both attack categories. This means that one could send in Ttar to check the sub lefty's variant of Kyurem-B, only to get ohkoed by a choice banded dragon claw. Point is, Pokemon is inherently a game of prediction, so if one wants to complain that there are no "dedicated counters", then they really need to look at a whole host of op hard hitting pokemon that are way faster than MegaMaw and can hit you hard with both physical and special attacks.

3. Another point I feel like most people have ignored is the usage of MegaMawile in the meta. Although I know usage is not the ultimate determinant of whether one should ban a pokemon or not, I do feel it is an important factor that should be considered when deciding if a mon is too "op" or "centralizing" for a certain meta. After all, is that not how the tiers are designed. Personally, I feel a pokemon that is really good and has few drawbacks is going to be used a lot, no? Yet has this been the case with MegaMaw? Although I don't have the usage statistics, I do know that I see a lot more mega charizards, heatrans, rotom-w's, genies, and chanseys running around than I see MegaMaw. Why is this? Because these pokes overall are better in that they perform their individual function superior to that of MegaMaw, or they just have much greater utility. Yet will they get suspected. Over half of the ones I mentioned probably won't, and there are more still that are more common than MegaMaw.

Overall, I feel it would be a mistake to ban this mon from OU. Clever, intelligent prediction and strategizing is inherent in any good strategy game. Sure MegaMaw is a hard hitting threat, so play your cards smart. Have answers to a common set, scout, get used to actually having to sack a poke or two sometimes to kill this mon if that is what is required. Ultimately, vote to not ban as this pokemon helps to keep the meta interesting!

 

[Scubasage]

it does i will agree karxrida but people need to sack some stuff to send in a different pokemon some times like at that point i havent faced the focus punch set but i feel taunt might keep it at bay

Taunt doesn't stop Focus Punch and it only sets up the sub once, when it first comes in.

Also, you sack a mon and bring in a check that can deal with Mawile. Cool. Now Mawile switches out. Now what? You sack something every time you want to bring in a check? eventually you'll be left without anything to sack.

Personally, I oppose the ban for three main reasons.
1. Although she hits super hard, MegaMawile is one of the slower mons in the tier, meaning it is very easy to hit it hard first, scare it out and possibly stat boost, or inflict it with status. WoW, for example, is extremely popular in OU and is very threatening and fairly easy to hit MegaMaw with, considering how slow the poke is. Once Maw is impaired with this condition, it becomes essentially cannon fodder.

2. MegaMaw may run a lot of different hard-hitting sets, but that should not be used as a reason to ban it saying that it is too hard to check or that it creates 50/50 situations. There are many other mons in the meta that also create 50/50 situations and if you guess wrong you can lose a possible key member to the team. Take, for example, Kyurem-B. While the poke doesn't have quite the same brute power as MegaMaw, it still hits super hard in both attack categories. This means that one could send in Ttar to check the sub lefty's variant of Kyurem-B, only to get ohkoed by a choice banded dragon claw. Point is, Pokemon is inherently a game of prediction, so if one wants to complain that there are no "dedicated counters", then they really need to look at a whole host of op hard hitting pokemon that are way faster than MegaMaw and can hit you hard with both physical and special attacks.

3. Another point I feel like most people have ignored is the usage of MegaMawile in the meta. Although I know usage is not the ultimate determinant of whether one should ban a pokemon or not, I do feel it is an important factor that should be considered when deciding if a mon is too "op" or "centralizing" for a certain meta. After all, is that not how the tiers are designed. Personally, I feel a pokemon that is really good and has few drawbacks is going to be used a lot, no? Yet has this been the case with MegaMaw? Although I don't have the usage statistics, I do know that I see a lot more mega charizards, heatrans, rotom-w's, genies, and chanseys running around than I see MegaMaw. Why is this? Because these pokes overall are better in that they perform their individual function superior to that of MegaMaw, or they just have much greater utility. Yet will they get suspected. Over half of the ones I mentioned probably won't, and there are more still that are more common than MegaMaw.

Overall, I feel it would be a mistake to ban this mon from OU. Clever, intelligent prediction and strategizing is inherent in any good strategy game. Sure MegaMaw is a hard hitting threat, so play your cards smart. Have answers to a common set, scout, get used to actually having to sack a poke or two sometimes to kill this mon if that is what is required. Ultimately, vote to not ban as this pokemon helps to keep the meta interesting!

Please people, read the thread. At least the last couple of pages if not the whole thing.

1) Mawile is not coming in and setting up on a Will o Wisp user. So you have to switch it in, meaning they get to either set up Substitute (oops, there goes the will o wisp plan) or Swords Dance (which, even burned, +2 Mawile pretty much 2HKOs 90% of the meta). It can also continue to boost if given a free turn to even get past the burn. Burns really only put it on a timer.

2) Losing a key member isn't the same as getting swept clean, or losing half your team. That's the difference, Mawile has the sheer power to do much more than just take out one key pokemon.

3) Usage never has, and never will, be a reason to keep something broken in the meta or to ban something that isn't broken.

 

[Hakumen]

Mega Mawile is incredibly broken, arguably the most broken Pokemon since Mega Lucario. Mega Mawile has everything it needs. Huge Power, along with its Attack makes it extremly powerful, it has the best attack in the game, reaching a base 259 Attack. Its typing is one of, if not the best one, both offensively and defensively, giving it lots of key resistances, immunities, especially to the common dragon type and has great coverage, therefore setting up is really easy. It's not even dead-weight before mega evolving thanks to its typing and great ability in Intimidate. On top of that, it gets lots of options in its movepool, it has 2 quite powerful STABs in Play Rough and Iron Head, Knok Off, Focus Punch, Sucker Punch(that makes up for its low speed), Fire Fang. All these traits combined make Mawile reallyhard to deal with.

Simply put, Mawile is a nuke due to its ridiculous attack and few things can actually switch in. Only Landorus-T, Bulky Charizard, Moltres and Talonflame can, the former being able to switch on only once due to its lack of recovery while the latter can only switch in assuming SR aren't up. Other answers are definitely not reliable enough against Mawile. Focus Punch and Fire Fang destroy Steel-types such as Skarmory, Ferrothorn, Mega Scizor and Heatran(which can't take a +2 Sucker Punch, making it an unreliable check) and they don't appreciate Knock Off overall. Venusaur is destroyed by SD + Iron Head and loses to fast versions. Victini dies to Knock Off on the switch and struggle against the SubPunch set. Amoonguss loses to every last move on the SD set. Quagsire seems like a great way to deal with Mega Mawile de to Unaware but it gets 2HKO by Play Rough and can't even OHKO with Earthquake. Really, nothing is safe from switching on Mega Mawile. While it can't run every moves at once, being able to bypassing its checks is one of the thing that makes Mega Mawile so broken because you have to scout the set before switching on. Also, you should keep in mind that Mawile can really easily overwhelm its "checks". Skarmory and Ferrothorn can't really take well +2 Knock Off and can't really do much back(except for a potential Thunder Wave on the latter). Heatran is 2HKOed by Knock Off making it a shaky check overall. Defensive Venusaur can't really do something back so it can even lose to non-Iron Head versions while offensive version can't take +2 Play rough + Sucker Punch. Really, nothing can swith on Mega Mawile without fear.

Moreover, Mawile has 3 other important things, the ability to easily come, a powerful priority in Sucker Punch and the fact that t doesn't require support. Using its fantastic typing, great bulk and Intimidate before Mega-evolving coming and setting up is incredibly easy. Mawile can easily set up on common threats such as Lati@s, non-CB Azumarill, as well as choice locked Dragon such as CB Nite and ScarfChomp. Having a powerful priority move in Sucker Punch(it's almost nearly as strong as Black Glasses Bisharp's so far from weak) is what makes Mawile so efficient against Offensive teams as it's really hard to revenge kill, being strong enough to even OHKO bulky mons like Garchomp after a Swords Dance boost. This means that you need a dark resist in order to revenge kill it. Lastly, unlike most other Pokemon Mawile doesn't really require support. It doesn't require something to sweep/wallbreak, it can do everything by itself. It's just does so much at once, it's a sweeper that is also an incredible wallbreaker and is extremly low risk/high reward

Offense are most of the time incredibly weak to Mawile. There are really few checks, basically offensive wisp heatran, Landorus-T and Mega Scizor (only for non-Fire Fang versions and SubPunch) and that's it. This means that once Mawile comes, 80% of the time, it will do a kill. +2 Sucker Punch is also extremly threatening as it OHKOes everything on Offense apart from Keldeo, Terrakion(both need Specs and Band respectively as they can't OHKO otherwise) and Greninja(OHKO 45% of the time after SR so if it already came, it's out). The worst is that these threats can't even switch on, they are all OHKO by Play Rough so they are taking risks by trying to switch on Swords Dance if you don't want to sac something. Mawile can of course be defeated, but most of the time, to do so, you'll have to make several sacrifices, leaving your team open to Mawile's partners and often you'll have to rely on the ever annoying 50/50.

While Mawile isn't the most threatening Pokemon to Balanced and Stall teams, they are still somewhat weak to it. Setting up Swords Dance against these teams is incredibly easy as they aren't really threatening. As stated above, most Mawile's checks aren't really reliable so you can't really rely on things like Skarmory, Venusaur, Landorus-T, Amoonguss and Quagsire to beat Mawile. You basically have to run obsure Pokemon just in order to deal with Mawile. Defensive Heatran with Will-o-Wisp is used soletly for Mawile as it would otherwise use Toxic which is by far superior. Defensive Zard Y is a cool check but it wouldn't really be used without Mawile. Moltres takes on Mawile pretty well but like Charizard is weak to SR and a niche mon overall. Victini can be used but it wouldn't be used in Stall otherwise. You still can win without having to run these obscure mons but it's incredibly unreliable and you'll most-likely have to make sacrifices. Really, if stall wants to beat Mawile in a reliable way, they have to run subpar options that wouldn't be used if Mawile wasn't in the tier, showing how unhealthy it is.

So, yes Mega Mawile is incredibly broken, it has many traits that make it broken, it has an amazing typing, great defensive stats and Intimidate to set up/come easily, from there it can start crushing teams with its incredible base 259 Attack and Swords Dance. It's even really hard to revenge kill because of Sucker Punch. All these things make MAwile incredibly consistent against both offensive and defensive teams alike. On top of that, it forces 50/50 and due to how threatening it is, losing the 50/50 often means losing the game. BAN Mawile, it's that broken.

 

[Subject 18]

CatataFish_6 is now blacklisted.

Please keep the discussion civil and intelligent.

 

[Slashari]

Also people say sucker punch is a problem pp stall it or find a way around it because sucker punch is not in any way unpredicatble

Sucker Punch can be played around, yes, but it is much riskier for an opposing mon to keep using a setup move than it is for Mawile to just keep using Sucker Punch. Plus, everything that you listed can't switch in at all and are very soft checks that rely on mind games and 50/50s to win.

 

[Valentine]

a proposition.

mawile will leave the tier, there's really no question about that. it's an extremely safe, generalist mega that covers tons of relevant threats against offense, while still heavily pressuring stall. it creates a very stale metagame, because realistically, there's no reason to use another mega. that's not my main concern, though. my concern is the post mawile/aegislash metagame. believe me when i say, i was confident that banning aegislash was the correct direction to take. but after experiencing the suspect ladder, i'm not so sure we are creating a healthy tier.

stall is literally nonexistent. with aegislash no longer around, and mawile not available as a mega (on suspect), every team is running garde/hera/cham, sometimes pinsir combined with magnezone. what on stall is supposed to handle any of the aforementioned pokemon? sableye and bulky psychics like defensive mew are the only reliable things there are for medicham, but they are useless against gardevoir. being forced to run something as inconsistent as sableye just to deal with one stallbreaker should already tell you something's wrong. you also have the fact that, in all actuality, nothing on stall can beat taunt garde. and then there's heracross OHKOing your most physically bulky pokemon, skarmory, with a swords dance under it's belt. stall, a style that was completely viable, even optimal, in SPL, world cup, and frontier, has become absolutely unplayable.

it started with the removal of aegislash. now that i've played a metagame with the removal of our second most reliable steel, mawile, it's easy to see that aegislash was a pokemon designed to balance out some of these incredible wallbreakers.

i propose that after the mawile ban, we retest aegislash.

 

[Lil YoshiXD]

a proposition.

mawile will leave the tier, there's really no question about that. it's an extremely safe, generalist mega that covers tons of relevant threats against offense, while still heavily pressuring stall. it creates a very stale metagame, because realistically, there's no reason to use another mega. that's not my main concern, though. my concern is the post mawile/aegislash metagame. believe me when i say, i was confident that banning aegislash was the correct direction to take. but after experiencing the suspect ladder, i'm not so sure we are creating a healthy tier.

stall is literally nonexistent. with aegislash and mawile gone, every team is running garde/hera/cham, sometimes pinsir combined with magnezone. what on stall is supposed to handle any of the aforementioned pokemon? sableye and defensive mew are the only reliable things there are for medicham, but they are useless against gardevoir. being forced to run something as inconsistent as sableye just to deal with one stallbreaker should already tell you something's wrong. you also have the fact that, in all actuality, nothing on stall can beat taunt garde. and then there's heracross OHKOing your most physically bulky pokemon, skarmory, with a swords dance under it's belt. stall, a style that was completely viable, even optimal, in SPL, world cup, and frontier, has become absolutely unplayable.

it started with the removal of aegislash. now that i've played a metagame with the removal of our second most reliable steel, mawile, it's easy to see that aegislash was a pokemon designed to balance out some of these incredible wallbreakers.

i propose that after the mawile ban, we retest aegislash.

why not just test hera or gard?

btw cham also handled by slowbro, victini, celebi, cresselia.

on topic tho yes meta is very anti stall based, but rather checking broken with broken, why not just ban the other broken?

Mega Mawile being banned also opens up another slot on stall to counter these things.

 

[I AM THE JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM]

why not just test hera or gard?

btw cham also handled by slowbro, victini, celebi, cresselia.

on topic tho yes meta is very anti stall based, but rather checking broken with broken, why not just ban the other broken?

Mega Mawile being banned also opens up another slot on stall to counter these things.

because hera or garde aren't broken. they are beyond broken vs stall, but so was hydreigon in BW.

 

[trc]

a proposition.

mawile will leave the tier, there's really no question about that. it's an extremely safe, generalist mega that covers tons of relevant threats against offense, while still heavily pressuring stall. it creates a very stale metagame, because realistically, there's no reason to use another mega. that's not my main concern, though. my concern is the post mawile/aegislash metagame. believe me when i say, i was confident that banning aegislash was the correct direction to take. but after experiencing the suspect ladder, i'm not so sure we are creating a healthy tier.

stall is literally nonexistent. with aegislash and mawile gone, every team is running garde/hera/cham, sometimes pinsir combined with magnezone. what on stall is supposed to handle any of the aforementioned pokemon? sableye and bulky psychics like defensive mew are the only reliable things there are for medicham, but they are useless against gardevoir. being forced to run something as inconsistent as sableye just to deal with one stallbreaker should already tell you something's wrong. you also have the fact that, in all actuality, nothing on stall can beat taunt garde. and then there's heracross OHKOing your most physically bulky pokemon, skarmory, with a swords dance under it's belt. stall, a style that was completely viable, even optimal, in SPL, world cup, and frontier, has become absolutely unplayable.

it started with the removal of aegislash. now that i've played a metagame with the removal of our second most reliable steel, mawile, it's easy to see that aegislash was a pokemon designed to balance out some of these incredible wallbreakers.

i propose that after the mawile ban, we retest aegislash.

I disagree with this, and I'm going to quote a post by kokoloko made in the UU forum because of how relevant it is here:

honestly, if there's a threat that completely stomps stall, then stall needs to adapt, its not the threats fault, its the fact that pure, full stall is a shitty playstyle for this very reason. how many things would we need to ban if we wanted to preserve that shit? the reason you continuously see me saying that stall should adapt and that its a shitty playstyle isn't just because i think its boring and not fun to use (i can't even lie though, i do think that) its because stall is the playstyle most prone to getting run over by random boosting sweepers. the lack of momentum and offensive pressure when using stall causes this. its the nature of the style. why the fuck should i, as a tier leader, go out of my way to ban everything that beats stall.

 

[alexwolf]

Not only this, but we can always ban those three Megas (Gardevoir, Medicham, Heracross) if we decide that their ability to fuck up defensive teams skews the balance of the metagame too much. I still hope that in the future we can retest Aegislash because some more broken Pokemon will hopefully be gone (Mega Mawile, and one more that i won't talk about here), letting us observe Aegislash impact in the metagame more clearly, and because of what is looking as a really great OU Pokemon that checks Aegislash will be introduced to OU (Volcanion), alongside with a lot of new MEvos.

 

[Valentine]

koko is very correct in saying, ban what is broken, and don't think of the repercussions. that's always been fundamental. you're not supposed to vote based on a suspects influence on the metagame, you're supposed to vote based on whether a suspect is overpowered to not. however, our goal as suspect testers is to create the most balanced tier possible, and i personally believe aegislash is required for that.

moving on to test things like medicham, gardevoir and heracross seems like a step in the wrong direction. the absence of stall is not the only problem here. i think a metagame without aegislash and mawile is more match up dependent for all styles, because of the plethora of new threats, and the inability to cover everything.

 

[Karxrida]

Not only this, but we can always ban those three Megas (Gardevoir, Medicham, Heracross) if we decide that their ability to fuck up defensive teams skews the balance of the metagame too much. I still hope that in the future we can retest Aegislash because some more broken Pokemon will hopefully be gone (Mega Mawile, and one more that i won't talk about here), letting us observe Aegislash impact in the metagame more clearly, and because of what is looking as a really great OU Pokemon that checks Aegislash will be introduced to OU (Volcanion), alongside with a lot of new MEvos.

The problem with that is that it's catering to a single playstyle that is very clearly not viable if there are that many things fucking it up. If there was only 1 Mon that made Stall unviable I would agree with this, but we have those 3 plus a ton of dedicated Stallbreakers that have been making Stall's life miserable.

 

[bro fist]

koko is very correct in saying, ban what is broken, and don't think of the repercussions. that's always been fundamental. you're not supposed to vote based on a suspects influence on the metagame, you're supposed to vote based on whether a suspect is overpowered to not. however, our goal as suspect testers is to create the most balanced metagame possible, and i personally believe aegislash is required for that.

continuing to test things like medicham, gardevoir and heracross seems like a step in the wrong direction.

i think you should stop acting like the sky is falling here and give it some time. it's been like 2 weeks and players are just playing with their new toys atm. the hype about hera/cham/gard will die down a bit and other stuff will be tested. by the time smogon tour/spl rolls around i'm sure nothing will stop people from running their beloved stall teams once again and people will just realize they were making something out of nothing the whole time.

 

[Arash]

so out of curiosity, what is the mega-mawile set in question? because reading through this thread, it seems like:

mawile @ mawilite
intimidate, 252 HP / ATK, adamant

- swords dance
- substitute
- fire fang
- focus punch
- iron head
- play rough
- sucker punch

i'm not trying to be sarcastic, but would really like to know what the 'broken' set is

 

[I AM THE JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM]

so out of curiosity, what is the mega-mawile set in question? because reading through this thread, it seems like:

mawile @ mawilite
intimidate, 252 HP / ATK, adamant

- swords dance
- substitute
- fire fang
- focus punch
- iron head
- play rough
- sucker punch

i'm not trying to be sarcastic, but would really like to know what the 'broken' set is

let me fix that for you

Mawile @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 132 HP / 252 Atk / 124 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute/Swords Dance
- Focus Punch/Fire Fang/Iron Head/Knock Off
- Play Rough
- Sucker Punch

 

[Jobes]

so out of curiosity, what is the mega-mawile set in question? because reading through this thread, it seems like:

mawile @ mawilite
intimidate, 252 HP / ATK, adamant

- swords dance
- substitute
- fire fang
- focus punch
- iron head
- play rough
- sucker punch

i'm not trying to be sarcastic, but would really like to know what the 'broken' set is

I'd say most would say and observe that the two most common sets are:
Sub+Focus Punch+Play Rough+Sucker Punch
and SD+Play Rough+Sucker Punch+Fire Fang

Of course, these sets both can be countered, but M-Mawile's versatility is a benefit to its prowess and potential brokenness. It is able to run coverage to beat nearly any counter without sacrificing much overall usefulness. No matter what it is running, its ability to force out many top threats and absolutely demolish near any switchin.

 

[Arash]

I'd say most would say and observe that the two most common sets are:
Sub+Focus Punch+Play Rough+Sucker Punch
and SD+Play Rough+Sucker Punch+Fire Fang

Of course, these sets both can be countered, but M-Mawile's versatility is a benefit to its prowess and potential brokenness. It is able to run coverage to beat nearly any counter without sacrificing much overall usefulness. No matter what it is running, its ability to force out many top threats and absolutely demolish near any switchin.

i think it shouldn't matter how versatile something is; if a pokemon is truly 'broken' it will be broken with one common set, a la garchomp in early 4th gen. you also have to predict to use sucker punch, which isn't always easy, and does not help you against a faster will-o-wisp user

also, if you run stuff to specifically beat your counters, you give up another move and some of your effectiveness vs other mons

 

[alexwolf]

koko is very correct in saying, ban what is broken, and don't think of the repercussions. that's always been fundamental. you're not supposed to vote based on a suspects influence on the metagame, you're supposed to vote based on whether a suspect is overpowered to not. however, our goal as suspect testers is to create the most balanced tier possible, and i personally believe aegislash is required for that.

moving on to test things like medicham, gardevoir and heracross seems like a step in the wrong direction. the absence of stall is not the only problem here. i think a metagame without aegislash and mawile is more match up dependent for all styles, because of the plethora of new threats, and the inability to cover everything.

Banning a suspect because of its negative influence in the metagame is indeed a sound reasoning, and one of the reasons that a lot of Pokemon have been banned in the past.

The problem with that is that it's catering to a single playstyle that is very clearly not viable if there are that many things fucking it up. If there was only 1 Mon that made Stall unviable I would agree with this, but we have those 3 plus a ton of dedicated Stallbreakers that have been making Stall's life miserable.

Those three Mega don't only make stall's life harder, they make any core that depends on defensive synergy harder to use, which includes balanced and bulky offense teams.

 

[Sanger Zonvolt]

i think it shouldn't matter how versatile something is; if a pokemon is truly 'broken' it will be broken with one common set, a la garchomp in early 4th gen. you also have to predict to use sucker punch, which isn't always easy, and does not help you against a faster will-o-wisp user

also, if you run stuff to specifically beat your counters, you give up another move and some of your effectiveness vs other mons

I disagree with this. Versatility can also be a factor for determining how broken a Mon is. For example, Deoxys-S performed many roles such as LO cleaner and suicide lead (and did so very well), but it wasn't broken in any of its roles. What made it broken was the fact that it could run very different sets that required different checks and different in-battle approaches, and what got it banned was the fact the punishment received for guessing its set wrong was too severe. While it's true that Mega Maw is not as versatile as Deo-S, the same issue applies: the punishment for guessing the set wrong is incredibly severe, and because of its movepool it has a very small pool of viable checks, guessing wrong makes it almost impossible to recover.

 

[~Enchanted~]

Whoa, everyone. Let's take a step back here. Not only is this conversation about M-Gard/Hera/Cham moving the thread topic away from M-Mawile, adding another 3 more Pokemon to the already-large potential suspect list just to save a dying playstyle in an inherently unbalanced metagame is moving way too fast. Let's just take things one step at a time, now.

 

[Srn]

i think it shouldn't matter how versatile something is; if a pokemon is truly 'broken' it will be broken with one common set, a la garchomp in early 4th gen. you also have to predict to use sucker punch, which isn't always easy, and does not help you against a faster will-o-wisp user

also, if you run stuff to specifically beat your counters, you give up another move and some of your effectiveness vs other mons

Yeah man mega lucario ran NP and SD and because it ran two different sets it was totally balanced and healthy for the metagame and not broken at all
....

When a mon runs different sets, given that they're both still good, it usually makes that mon more threatening and not less. This is because you then have to scout to see if your answer is really just fodder for a lure set or what not; basically being unpredictable is far more dangerous than if you know the exact evs, movepool, and nature of every mega pinsir you see >_>

 

[Jukain]

hey, gonna go a bit off-topic and comment on the state of the ou meta as a whole at this point, if that's okay.

i think bringing back aegislash would be one of the worst possible mistakes we could make at this stage of the meta. the diversity of the post-aegi and maw metas is insane and the ou tier has become much, much better. i'm a fan of stall, and i think the comments that stall is dead come from a misguided mindset attatched to the shitty, matchup-based, passive stalls that could work in aegi meta because these megas were less common. i think stall can and should adapt, and it's not even impossible. it boils down to being creative and thinking outside the box to create an effective stall team that can check these threats and/or put pressure on the opposing team.

lemme take an example of what i mean for you: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-18563. tesung got garbage critted as he was about to 6-0, whatever that's not the point. my point is the team, which is designed around chesnaught spikes + taunt aero putting enormous pressure on the opposing team to wear them down and cm clef can sweep. this team beats all of the wallbreakers very effectively by being specifically designed to be non-passive. i've also played tesung with a
him using a granbull + mega scizor stall that worked pretty damn well, prob coulda won the game i played against him with my medi team until i got bored and took a dumb chance because i could, but that's not the point. i've also seen promising examples of doublade stall, examples shown in these replays: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-152429642 (ctc) and http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/oususpecttest-151889907 (ajwf).

i think stall is able to adapt to the metagame and that the 'unviability of stall' is untrue, exaggerated, and misguided. in any case, if these new megas are deemed broken, i wouldn't be against testing them and in fact, i'm starting to think mega medicham and gardevoir might be worth looking into, but unbanning aegislash is not the right direction to take to 'save the meta'. because guess what, aegi meta was shit. all having it gone has done, perhaps, is revealed what's truly broken.

 

[bigkahuna07]

hey, gonna go a bit off-topic and comment on the state of the ou meta as a whole at this point, if that's okay.

i think bringing back aegislash would be one of the worst possible mistakes we could make at this stage of the meta. the diversity of the post-aegi and maw metas is insane and the ou tier has become much, much better. i'm a fan of stall, and i think the comments that stall is dead come from a misguided mindset attatched to the shitty, matchup-based, passive stalls that could work in aegi meta because these megas were less common. i think stall can and should adapt, and it's not even impossible. it boils down to being creative and thinking outside the box to create an effective stall team that can check these threats and/or put pressure on the opposing team.

lemme take an example of what i mean for you: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-18563. tesung got garbage critted as he was about to 6-0, whatever that's not the point. my point is the team, which is designed around chesnaught spikes + taunt aero putting enormous pressure on the opposing team to wear them down and cm clef can sweep. this team beats all of the wallbreakers very effectively by being specifically designed to be non-passive. i've also played tesung with a
him using a granbull + mega scizor stall that worked pretty damn well, prob coulda won the game i played against him with my medi team until i got bored and took a dumb chance because i could, but that's not the point. i've also seen promising examples of doublade stall, examples shown in these replays: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-152429642 (ctc) and http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/oususpecttest-151889907 (ajwf).

i think stall is able to adapt to the metagame and that the 'unviability of stall' is untrue, exaggerated, and misguided. in any case, if these new megas are deemed broken, i wouldn't be against testing them and in fact, i'm starting to think mega medicham and gardevoir might be worth looking into, but unbanning aegislash is not the right direction to take to 'save the meta'. because guess what, aegi meta was shit. all having it gone has done, perhaps, is revealed what's truly broken.

I also agree that in no way is stall not viable, it only takes more skill and knowledge of the game to pull off "Correctly", most people atm are just too used to using offensive teams full of nothing but sweepers and such. I am looking forward to more different megas being used now that aegi and mega maw are out of the picture, it's good for the meta as a whole and everyone's enjoyment to see more different teams.

 

[tehy]

My stall team isn't broken by SD megacross and Megacham because i run max D unaware clefable, learn it love it et cetera

Seriously, I just adapted and i'm doing pretty okay, not great because Mega Garde is legit broken and because, well maybe i'm doing better than okay, i still don't feel like i've fully plumbed the depths of my new team (also Azu is a problem for me now, luckily band is few and far between!)

I don't think Aegi was broken personally. Koko's post about stall getting ruined by shit, Offense was much harder fucked by aegis, stall could just use Manlybuzz, Foul Play gives no fucks about King's Shield. Only the LO mixed set specifically designed to break that could get past it-and who knows, maybe we could adapt past that, too!


Oh yeah, holy shit Mega mawile is broken. And honestly, it kind of checks those three megas, but not even that well. It can't take a hyper voice and CC only with intimidate, i.e. only once. Megacham i guess intimidate. Revenges gardy and cham to some extent with sucker but w/e, banning it will really help stall overall even if it did make those 3 worse. Can we just ban Mega Mawile already?

Edit: Jukain has a strong fucking point. Shit like SDcross could always have broken my old team, it's just that it was 'unviable'. except what if someone says "Fuck it i'll take the stall shatter over beating aegis", then i'm fucked. So that stuff was always broken vs stall it just kind of had a lid kept on it by sucking vs aegis.

I say bring on the suspects, not sure if cham is worth it, kind of sure about garde